Swype vs SlideIT vs Shapewriter? All look great (and similar)!

[LrdElderon]

I know I'm a tad slow getting back to the party lol, don't mean to kick up an old thread, but I finally got to play with the new 1.5.2 slideIt version. So I have now used the new beta of swype, Shapewriter( my mainstay) and the newest slideit.

In my opinion and it's mine, everyone can think whatever they wish, but for me I think SlideIT has potential to be good, but is horrible...like really terrible. It has a ugly look, it doesn't know half the normal use words (yeah you can add them i know). words it does know it IS pretty accurate. HUGE gripe i have though. No double keys or punctuations besides. and , any numbers or other symbols I have to switch to a whole other keypad in slideit to enter them then switch back... not effective at all.

It seems like they put in all their efforts into creating a huge pointless list of abbreviated sentences and that's about it. The only thing of interest was the graffiti option which is something that is original between the three swipe type keyboards. Other then that I would say pass, it's garbage unless they seriously update it, for a company with supposedly 30 years of research on this, I sure do not see it in SlideIT, perhaps it's better on the other os phones?

Shapewriter is my favorite, especially now that they went free(why i dunno are they selling to oems also?) it's been regularly updated and they are open to feedback at least in emails (forums tend to get spammed a bit). The updates have improved it significantly. It's fast, very accurate and gets better over time since it learns how you swipe the words. Not quite as accurate as swype to start, but after using it for some time I think it is, it just needs time to learn your gestures for words to optimize itself as well as it has a smaller dictionary (bigger than slideits apparently, but smaller than swype at start). It has auto caps, auto space, a literal mode for passwords or emails...etc as well as the douple character input people praise in SlideIT aka fot = foot.... It also has a ton of command options like select all, copy, cut, paste these types of things I did not find in SlideIT or the manual, perhaps they are in there somewhere too? These features along with all keys having multiple inputs allowing me to actually use punctuation and numbers from the main keyboard, make it a winner (there is a number pad/sym input keyboard, but you don't have to use it)

My only disappointment at the moment is that 1, it's not skinnable/theme able and 2, no voice input button. I think these will eventually be coming though , especially voice input now that 2.1 is officially out.

Swype is my second favorite perhaps tied with first or just beneath. it uses a loopy gesture for double letters that im not super fond of, I've grown accustomed to shapewriter doing it for me It's fast, I know it's theme able somehow. I've seen roms with some that have various colored skins, but the skins are still the same, just colored.... It's extremely accurate, especially at the start, due to it having a very large list of more common / mainstream words and products / brand names...etc. Swype also does not have a voice input button yet. Really I would be happy using either swype or shapewriter, my trigger for going to shapewriter is that unlike swype shapewriter will deal with individuals through the market, where as swype is still focused on oem only sells.


I really after a day of using slideIT do not see what is so great about it. it works yes, but nowhere near as good as the other two nor does it have as many features, the only thing I found it had that the other two didn't was grafiti input.

my opinion? use swype if you have access to the official beta (yeah lol i know who doesn't now... argggh matey!) otherwise go with shapewriter and don't look back, perhaps if swype becomes user purchasable it will be the go to keyboard.

 

[jroc]

I just started using Swype last week. When I first saw it I was like what is this bull&% lol. I thought I would never be able to use it. Now? I use it as the main virtual keyboard, and I impress folks with my super fast typing... U have me wanting to try this Shape Writer. Whatever I choose, its all swipe-type keyboards for me from now on.

I just tried Shape Writer. Everything u said about Shape Writer is dead on. After adding words to Shape's dictionary, its gotten better already. But Swype ftw in my book. The accuracy out the box is a big advantage for Swype.

 

[samite]

After having used all three keyboards I have found that I like swype the best just because it is easiest to add e-mail and passwords in it since all of mine have special characters and i have not been able to figure out how to do that in the other keyboards

 

[qat]

So, I saw the big thread about Swype vs. SlideIT vs. ShapeWriter. After trying out Swype and ShapeWriter, i've found that ShapeWriter is all I need.

Swype was pretty great, but had a few cons to it. I couldn't get used to the double letter technique. You have to kind of zig-zag or loop around a letter to get the "tt" or "oo" effect. With ShapeWriter, it automatically either suggests the word with 2 letters, or assumes you meant to have the double character.

One of the things I really liked about Swype was that it was more accurate when I was zooming across the keyboard, but it had a lot more options when I had longer words, that didn't really seem relevant. ShapeWriter was more accurate with longer letter words, but some short words don't even come up as options (the word "like" gave me some trouble). Also, ShapeWriter had some unusual words in the dictionary. Now, i'm not sure if these two tools maintain separate dictionaries or if there is one that the phone shares universally, but I think a shared dictionary would be a great idea.

The other thing that kind of made me think twice about Swype was that it's not available on the market. You have to have access to the "beta testing", which is basically anybody who requests it. It shows that they're not confident enough to put it on the market, most likely because it will tarnish their reputation?

On the flip side, you can not (or I could not) figure out how to add passwords or e-mail addresses to the dictionary with ShapeWriter, but you could with Swype. Capitalization was kind of tricky with Swype, whereas ShapeWriter automatically uses an upper case character for the first letter of a sentence, and adds a period after two spaces to create a new sentence.

jsh1120 had questioned the recent updates to ShapeWriter, and i'll say that as of late, it was worked flawlessly for me, with the exception of some very short words. "on" vs. "in".

Anyways, for a quick reference...

ShapeWriter
Pros

• Better with long words
• Some automatic punctuation
• Available on Market (Not really a PRO but speaks for the software)

Cons

• Weak dictionary initially
• Can't add emails or passwords
• Difficulty recognizing short words

Swype
Pros

• Great dictionary at installation
• Ability to store special characters in dictionary
• Automatic addition of words to dictionary after punching in letters

Cons

• Not available on Market
• Loop action to double letters
• Mechanism to capitalize letters seemed difficult to me

Conclusion: I'll be sticking to ShapeWriter for now. I'd like to see Swype when it is officially available to the public, since now we're working with a "closed" copy. I think that they both have done a very good job at accomplishing the same goal, but, it's all up to preference. I think ShapeWriter solved the problem the same way I would have, so it's my App of Choice here. I'll keep an eye on Swype though. Unfortunately, i'm not interested in paying for SlideIT .

 

[jsh1120]

...
Swype was pretty great, but had a few cons to it. I couldn't get used to the double letter technique. You have to kind of zig-zag or loop around a letter to get the "tt" or "oo" effect. With ShapeWriter, it automatically either suggests the word with 2 letters, or assumes you meant to have the double character.

... Now, i'm not sure if these two tools maintain separate dictionaries or if there is one that the phone shares universally, but I think a shared dictionary would be a great idea.

The other thing that kind of made me think twice about Swype was that it's not available on the market. You have to have access to the "beta testing", which is basically anybody who requests it. It shows that they're not confident enough to put it on the market, most likely because it will tarnish their reputation?

On the flip side, you can not (or I could not) figure out how to add passwords or e-mail addresses to the dictionary with ShapeWriter, but you could with Swype. Capitalization was kind of tricky with Swype, whereas ShapeWriter automatically uses an upper case character for the first letter of a sentence, and adds a period after two spaces to create a new sentence.

jsh1120 had questioned the recent updates to ShapeWriter, and i'll say that as of late, it was worked flawlessly for me, with the exception of some very short words. "on" vs. "in".

.

Thanks for the review, qat. I've quoted a few of your comments above for reference.

() Double letters. This is an individual preference, I think. I personally prefer Swype's approach of "looping" to enter double letters. I find it distracting to type "god" when I mean "good." I think that's because I'm a compulsive speller and I know what I mean to type. Obviously, ymmv.

() All the input methods maintain separate dictionaries. I agree that it would be more convenient to have a common dictionary but I doubt seriously that is going to happen.

() Your comment about Swype's beta and their level of confidence in the product suggests that you're not familiar with the firm's business strategy. In fact, the beta is not open to anyone; it's closed. And the reason they have not released the product in the market is based on a particular business strategy that has to do with integration of Swype with particular devices' operating systems.

() I agree that Swype's handling of email addresses and url's is superior. It's the best I've found.

() The end of sentence issue (i.e. adding two spaces and a capital letter) is a tricky one. First, it's no longer standard behavior to add two spaces after a period at the end of a sentence. Though you'll notice I do that after years of typing. The international standard is now a single space. (Has to do with fixed width fonts, I believe.)

But the more important issue is that if you automatically put two spaces after a "period" and capitalize the next letter, it undermines the handling of the "dot" in email addresses and such. Swype apparently wrestled with the issue and decided that it's better to ask the user to enter a "." and a space if they are at the end of a sentence and then to auto-capitalize the next letter. I wouldn't be surprised to see this behavior be redefined as optional in future releases.

() I've been keeping up with the Shapewriter updates and though I prefer Swype, I'm happy to see an alternative that continues to be improved. The competition both improves the products and allows users to select what works best for them.

 

[qat]

Thanks for the review, qat. I've quoted a few of your comments above for reference.

() Double letters. This is an individual preference, I think. I personally prefer Swype's approach of "looping" to enter double letters. I find it distracting to type "god" when I mean "good." I think that's because I'm a compulsive speller and I know what I mean to type. Obviously, ymmv.

() All the input methods maintain separate dictionaries. I agree that it would be more convenient to have a common dictionary but I doubt seriously that is going to happen.

() Your comment about Swype's beta and their level of confidence in the product suggests that you're not familiar with the firm's business strategy. In fact, the beta is not open to anyone; it's closed. And the reason they have not released the product in the market is based on a particular business strategy that has to do with integration of Swype with particular devices' operating systems.

() I agree that Swype's handling of email addresses and url's is superior. It's the best I've found.

() The end of sentence issue (i.e. adding two spaces and a capital letter) is a tricky one. First, it's no longer standard behavior to add two spaces after a period at the end of a sentence. Though you'll notice I do that after years of typing. The international standard is now a single space. (Has to do with fixed width fonts, I believe.)

But the more important issue is that if you automatically put two spaces after a "period" and capitalize the next letter, it undermines the handling of the "dot" in email addresses and such. Swype apparently wrestled with the issue and decided that it's better to ask the user to enter a "." and a space if they are at the end of a sentence and then to auto-capitalize the next letter. I wouldn't be surprised to see this behavior be redefined as optional in future releases.

() I've been keeping up with the Shapewriter updates and though I prefer Swype, I'm happy to see an alternative that continues to be improved. The competition both improves the products and allows users to select what works best for them.

I'm glad you're a bit more in tune with Swype's motives than myself. The looping concept is infact a preference. I tend to let the spell check correct me. Also, the international standard thing with double spaces -- I was completely unaware of it. I never knew that it was really a "standard" even, just something that I was taught in high school and never changed!

The marketing strategy is again something I did not even look into. Being a developer myself, it's common practice to not even have a beta test until you feel the software is at a "stable" state, knowing that bugs will be discovered. If they're waiting to have Swype integrated with certain devices, then my assumption is probably wrong.

All in all, i'd say Swype and ShapeWriter are on very comparable levels.

 

[pwjone1]

Sounds like Shapewriter went off-market on 6/20 (yesterday), so for now at least, SlideIT is the only one on the Android Marketplace. Interesting...

(I also see that Swype, in terms of customer feedback, #1 is getting it added to the Marketplace:

Customer Feedback for Swype Inc

)

 

[Cubanjinx]

ShapeWriter, here again if I move more slowly it gets less errors. And it auto caps after periods. If move to slowly it will do this:;or this#^. Hmmm have to punch in hmmmm and lol if I just did "lol" by shape it comes out "look".

Anyways I suggest everyone give these a try makes the hard keyboard, just hard to deal with. Lol.

Swype does auto cap after periods, you just have to hit space

 

[Bdog]

I've tried ShapeWriter when I wasn't able to find Swype, and you have to be pinpoint accurate. I can't tell you how many times I'd type "how's" and it said "hours" without giving me a selection of similar words, and it still hasn't learned any of my slang.

SlideIt, I just now downloaded to give it a shot, and the free demo version is very choppy and slow, and also doesn't allow much room for error. It does suggest similar words, but it's very disappointing. I'm not giving it a long enough chance to figure out if it has an automatic user dictionary.

Swype, I've been using for only a couple weeks, and it is by far the best. It's very casual and allows some amazing room for error, and a very accurate similar word suggestions. Adding punctuation into words is the easiest, and it already knew all the names (including last) in my contacts, and saves slang words I use the first time I use them.

So my answer is definitely Swype. When it gets out of beta, it will be the only app I'm willing to pay for.

 

[chayes627]

i havent tried any of the others but so far slideit has been great short and long words. adding words to dictionary is pretty easy and there is a symbols button like the regular keyboard. selection of words seems to be much omproved compared to what people have been saying. of course it has been almost 2 months.

 

[xxturbowesxx]

Whats available out there now? it doesnt seem like these 3 are around the market anymore.

 

[Phillipsave]

SlideIT is in the market and just had an update, you need to type it with the IT capitalized perhaps, and no space. Also, it's made by Dasur, you can search for it that way. Swype is installed automatically on the Droid X, but I believe the beta version, that is available on the Swype website, may be temporarily closed. Shapewriter I think is no longer available.

 

[Droman]

link to slideIT on the Market :

SlideIT Keyboard - Full version (v2.0.1): market://search?q=pname:com.dasur.slideit

SlideIT Keyboard Demo (v2.0.1): market://search?q=pname:com.dasur.slideit.vt.lite

 

[yawngg]

Having used swype for a month, and becoming so frustrated i made the plunge to try SlideIT. It seems to be doing a much, much, better job for me. Perhaps because theres spaces in between the buttons? I hear people saying "Even if i dont click directly on the key swype figures out what i wanted" like its a gift! Biggest curse ever, and no way to turn it off, u can PERFECTLY swype a word, and it will continuously give you the wrong word. Now my dancedroid makes me a :icon_ banana:. Sorry about the images i just registered n they looked cool. GIANT thumbs up for SlideIT.

 

[warhawk]

What Else?

I got to play with Swype briefly on a friend's phone and I love it for natural language. SlideIt is good too. I even would like 8pen if they optimized it a little bit so that it didn't take at least two swipes to make any letter. All of these seem to fall short when it comes to terminal and VNC type stuff.

I used to grumble and just slide out the tiny elfin keyboard on my phone. Have you ever tried to use vi or emacs with Swype? Or with the tiny hard keyboard?

It was all so hard until I found SlydeBoard! It's really the best for that sort of thing, even if it's not comparable to Swype for texting and e-mail.